GitHub MCP

What it is

GitHub's MCP server for the GitHub platform, in two forms over the same API surface: a remote endpoint GitHub hosts at https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/, and a local binary or Docker image you run with your own token.

What you get

• Repository work: file contents read and written, branches and tags, commits, releases, the repository tree, forks, collaborators and code search — get_file_contents, create_or_update_file, push_files, create_branch, list_branches, list_commits, get_commit, get_repository_tree, list_releases, fork_repository, search_code
• Issues end to end, including sub-issues, labels, fields and types — issue_read, issue_write, sub_issue_write, list_issues, search_issues, add_issue_comment, list_issue_fields, list_issue_types
• Pull requests created, read in detail, reviewed comment by comment, merged, updated and their branches refreshed — create_pull_request, pull_request_read, add_comment_to_pending_review, pull_request_review_write, merge_pull_request, update_pull_request, update_pull_request_branch, search_pull_requests
• Actions: workflows and runs listed and inspected, a run triggered, and the logs of the job that failed — actions_list, actions_get, actions_run_trigger, get_job_logs
• Security findings in one place: code scanning, Dependabot, secret scanning and published advisories — list_code_scanning_alerts, list_dependabot_alerts, list_secret_scanning_alerts, get_secret_scanning_alert, list_global_security_advisories
• Discussions, gists, labels, notifications, projects, stargazers, organizations, users and low-level Git operations, each in its own toolset enabled by name
• Work handed to Copilot: an issue assigned, a review requested, and — on the remote server — a pull request opened by the coding agent, Copilot Spaces read, and GitHub's support docs searched — assign_copilot_to_issue, request_copilot_review, create_pull_request_with_copilot, get_copilot_space, github_support_docs_search
• Two safety switches: read-only mode, which offers only the reading tools, and lockdown mode, which withholds or filters public-repository content authored by people without push access

Requirements

A GitHub account. The remote server is authorized over OAuth in hosts that support it, or with a personal access token — enterprise-managed users have PATs disabled until an administrator enables them. Locally it takes GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN and runs as the binary or the ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server image. Only five toolsets are on by default — context, repos, issues, pull_requests and users — and the rest are named in GITHUB_TOOLSETS, the --toolsets flag, a URL path or an HTTP header depending on how you run it, with all as the catch-all. GitHub Enterprise Server cannot use the remote endpoint; Enterprise Cloud with data residency has its own.

Setup effort

One command plus a key — claude mcp add-json github '{"type":"http","url":"https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp","headers":{"Authorization":"Bearer <YOUR_GITHUB_PAT>"}}', then supply credentials

Tools you get

90 tools named in the project's documentation.

Requires

• A client that can reach a remote MCP server over HTTP
• GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN in your environment